Twinchantment

by Elise Allen

  “Yeah, I’ll keep going. I mean, I guess it doesn’t really change anything…except everything…. I just wish you’d tell me why.”

  “We will, I swear,” Sara said. “We’ll tell you everything.” Flissa elbowed her, and Sara knew it was because she wanted to tell Galric as little as possible. “But the most important thing I can tell you is we don’t have a lot of time, so can we please just keep going?”

  Galric looked back and forth between them so many times it made Sara dizzy. Then he sighed. “Yeah. Come on. This way. Here, Nitpick.”

  The kitten leaped off Sara’s shoulder and into Galric’s hands. He tucked him back into his shirt and led them to the far end of the chamber, where five paths branched off. Each had a stone archway barely taller than Galric himself, and they all looked identical to Sara, but Galric beelined for the second archway from the left, which led them down a dirt-floored, rock-walled corridor. The path was very slim, and Sara was so lost in thought that she had trouble walking straight. She’d veer slightly to the left or right, and Flissa kept tugging her arm so she wouldn’t accidentally bump into the torches scattered along the wall.

  It was Galric that had her preoccupied. He stayed silent, which made her nervous. He’d said he’d keep helping, and that was good, but did he like her less now that he knew she was a twin? Sara knew she shouldn’t care either way—they weren’t on this trip to become friends—but she still did. She kept her eyes on his back, as if it might offer some clue about what he was feeling.

  “The twin thing,” Galric finally said, never breaking stride or looking back at them, “is that because of my dad?”

  Now Sara understood, and she both relaxed and felt terrible at the same time. He hadn’t been quiet because he didn’t like her anymore, he’d been quiet because he was afraid his dad had done something terrible to them. More terrible to them than what he’d already thought.

  “No,” Sara assured him. “Our nursemaid, who delivered us, says we were twins all along. That’s why the curse didn’t kill us. The bad magic had to go through Mom first, and then it was all spread out between Flissa and me, so we were okay.”

  The tension in Galric’s back eased a little. “Good.” He stopped walking. “We’re here.”

  Galric looked up, and the girls followed his gaze. There was a circular space in the rock ceiling—the beginning of a tube that extended up, up, up to a circle of moonlight shining through tree fronds outside. To Sara it looked magical—like they were at the bottom of a wishing well.

  “Amazing,” she said. “Where does it come out?”

  “Nowhere near the castle,” Galric said. “None of the Guards will see you, and it’s pretty well hidden from the Keepers. As well as anything can be hidden from them, I guess.”

  Sara saw Flissa light up and grin as she stared at the long vertical passage, and it made Sara smile too. She could practically see her sister’s arms and legs twitching to go.

  Flissa spun to Sara so quickly, her braids smacked her cheeks. “You can do this. It is exponentially easier than the rope swing. I see plenty of hand- and footholds, and even outcroppings where you can pause and take a rest.”

  She twirled a braid and looked pleadingly at Sara. “Would you mind terribly if I started up?”

  Sara laughed. The climb looked awful to her, but for Flissa it was like a giant wrapped present.

  “Go,” she said. “I’m fine. If I need help, Galric’s here.”

  Flissa frowned a little at that, but then she smiled and scrambled onto the wall, moving faster and with greater agility than Sara had on flat ground. Within seconds she’d climbed all the way to the top, and sat perched on an outcropping just under the open circle of sky. She stared up at it for a moment, then turned and gestured for Sara and Galric to join her.

  “Let me guess,” Galric said, staring up at Flissa in awe. “She’s the one I saw joust the Duke of Ellsbrough.”

  “For sure,” Sara agreed. She looked back at the impossibly high wall. “So how exactly do I start up this thing?”

  Galric offered to climb next to her and point out hand- and footholds along the way. Flissa had been right: The climb wasn’t difficult, even for Sara, and with each pull of her arms and push of her legs, she felt stronger and more accomplished.

  “This is amazing!” she said. “I’ve never done anything like this!”

  “You’re doing great,” Galric agreed. “Just don’t look down.”

  Sara looked down.

  The floor loomed miles below, and as she stared, it telescoped even farther away. Her heart leaped into her mouth, and she gripped the wall so tightly she couldn’t feel her fingers.

  “I’m gonna fall,” she gasped. “I’m-gonna-fall-I’m-gonna-fall-I’m-gonna-fall!”

  “Why did you look down?” Galric cried.

  “You said ‘look down’!”

  “I said ‘don’t look down’!”

  “The words ‘look’ and ‘down’ were in there!” Sara said. “Blast-blast-blast-blast-blast, I’m gonna fall!”

  Galric scuttled closer to her. “You won’t,” he said. “I’m right here with you, and I’m gonna help you, okay?”

  Sara nodded.

  “Focus on the sound of my voice. Got it?”

  Sara nodded again.

  “Good,” he said. “Now put your left foot on this ledge and push your weight down. You can do it.”

  Sara did what he said. It worked.

  “Yes, yes, good. Now your left hand on this rock and pull. Okay? I’m right here.”

  Sara listened again. She pretended her body wasn’t under her control at all; it just listened to directions and did what it was told.

  “This is good,” Sara said nervously as Galric patted the next spot for her right hand. “Keep doing that, but talk to me. Distract me. I don’t want to think about what’s down there.”

  “Sure, if that’ll help. Right foot here and push. What do you want to know?”

  Sara thought, then nodded. “Okay, I always wondered this. I never thought the Keepers were the most—I don’t know—sympathetic people, especially when they think someone might be magic.” She paused as she stretched up, and Galric pointed out a stone for her left foot. “So how did you end up staying in Kaloon when your dad was sent to the Twists?”

  If the question made Galric uncomfortable, he didn’t show it. He just kept pointing out hand- and footholds. “Someone convinced them not to,” he said. “Still not sure how. But it’s not like the Keepers left me alone—Okay, this one’s a big stretch. Reach all the way up here, okay? Good.”

  “What did they do?” Sara asked, all kinds of imaginary scenarios already playing out in her head.

  “At first? I mean, I was really little, so I don’t remember all of it, and it’s all kind of jumbled together with what other people told me about it after. I know the Keepers took me away. For a few months, I’m told, but it’s just flashes for me. Let’s bring it a little to the left—there’s an easier path that way.”

  “Did they take you here?” Sara asked, sidling to the left. “Is that why you know it so well?

  Galric laughed. “I’m pretty sure the Keepers haven’t used this place in generations. Remember, I told you I found it when I worked in the kitchen.”

  “Oh, right. Grab up here?”

  Galric nodded, and Sara grabbed and hoisted herself higher. Galric kept pace.

  “So where did they take you instead?”

  “I don’t know. But I remember bits and pieces of what happened. The thing that sticks out is this box they had, a metal box. Just big enough for me to crouch in. They’d lock me in, with just my head sticking out, everything else crammed inside. Now grab the rock on your left, the big sticky-outy one. Yes, good.”

  Sara couldn’t believe he was talking about this like it was nothing. It sounded awful. “Why?” she asked. “Why would they do that to you?”

  Galric shrugged. “I guess the idea was—See, that was a great one! I didn’t even have to tell yo
u. Now grab that indentation for your right hand—If I were magic, and they made me miserable enough, I’d use magic to get out. I wouldn’t be able to help it. And they were right. If I’d been magic, I would have used it to get out. I’d have done anything to get out of there. Right foot there, left arm there, then pull your left foot to that ledge.”

  Sara climbed, but her head was a million miles away with poor not-even-two-year-old Galric. “That’s awful—and they kept you for months?”

  “Not in the box. Pretty sure that was just an every-now-and-then thing. I just hated it so much it’s the only part I remember. But when the Keepers let me go, the woman who took me in said I was so afraid of small spaces, I didn’t even want to go inside. She put out hay bales for beds, and we pretty much lived outside for a couple weeks.” He looked up, then smiled at Sara. “You’re so close. Just a few pulls more. That stone right there.”

  Sara took a smaller step than he suggested. She knew they had to hurry, but she didn’t want the conversation to end. “Someone took you in?”

  Galric smiled, the warmest smile Sara had seen on him yet. “Yeah. She said she’d watch me, even take responsibility if I ended up doing anything magical. My guess is she’s the one who stopped the Keepers from throwing me in the Twists in the first place, but she never said.”

  “So then the Keepers stopped bothering you?”

  Galric laughed ruefully. “No. When I was little they popped up all the time. Would grab me out of nowhere while I was playing with other kids and keep me for a few days. Test me. The box thing. Just to make sure I wasn’t magic and didn’t belong in the Twists. Didn’t take long before the other kids weren’t allowed to hang out with me anymore. Too scary. But, you know, the older I got, the less interested the Keepers were, so that was good. They still grab me sometimes, but now it’s only maybe once a year. And I’m used to it now. The tests don’t even hurt anymore.”

  Sara had stopped climbing. She just looked at Galric as he busied himself studying the wall, seemingly unfazed by the terrible things that had happened to him—that still happened to him.

  “I’m so sorry, Galric. If I’d had any idea—”

  Galric met her eyes now. “What could you have done? Who’s really in charge in Kaloon, the royal family or the Keepers of the Light?”

  Sara immediately opened her mouth to defend her family’s honor, but she didn’t say a word. Galric was right, and Sara knew it better than anyone. She was a princess of Kaloon, but she’d been hiding from the Keepers of the Light since birth.

  “I wish it were different,” Sara finally said.

  “Me too. Right foot there, and—”

  “You made it.” Flissa’s voice cut in, and Sara looked up to see her sitting on a ledge just a few feet away. “I knew you could do it. Here.”

  She reached out her hand. Sara grabbed on and let her sister pull her to the ledge by her side. Together, they looked up at the night sky. “I wish we didn’t have to go,” Flissa said. “I wish we could stay here all night.”

  Sara agreed. Tucked under the lip of the ground, they were safe from prying eyes, but still out in the world together, something neither of them ever imagined could actually happen.

  “But we can’t, right?” Galric said. He scrambled up the last stones, reached up for the edge of the hole, and hoisted himself out. “You said you don’t have much time.”

  “Exactly,” Flissa said. She hoisted herself out of the hole too; then she and Galric both reached in to help Sara. She let them hoist her up; then she rolled onto a bed of soft grass tucked under a giant weeping willow tree whose branches hung all the way to the ground. The curtain perfectly camouflaged the secret tunnel, as well as the three of them. Moonlight shone through the leaves, and Sara stayed on her back looking up at it. She’d never been outside this late—she’d never been awake this late—and even though she was in her own kingdom, everything felt strange and surreal.

  She rolled to her feet and parted the curtain of fronds. They were on a hill, and below them the towns and villages of Kaloon spread wide under a gorgeous starlit night. The sweet air kissed Sara’s face, and she took a deep breath to drink it all in. Then she saw the castle and gasped. It looked far away and enchanted, outlined by the lights of a million sconces. She had never in all her life seen it this way, the way everyone else in the kingdom probably knew it best.

  “It’s beautiful,” Sara sighed. “Flissa, our kingdom is beautiful.”

  “It is,” Flissa whispered behind her, “but it’s also dangerous for us to be out together, so please stay hidden. There are Guards, Keepers—”

  “And your own subjects,” Galric cut in. Flissa shot him an angry look, but he put out his hands in defense. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. Kaloonians love Princess Flissara, but if they see you’re twins and you’ve been fooling them forever? Not good. They’ll get mad. Or scared. Or both. Most of them would turn you in, and I bet some of them would go after you themselves. And did you bring weapons?”

  “Weapons?!” Flissa asked incredulously. “We are not using weapons on our subjects, no matter how frightened they get or what they do.”

  Galric rolled his eyes. “Not for here, for the Twists. That whole place was built from Keeper magic. Do you even know what that means? Do you know what they’re capable of doing?”

  “I know what they can do when they’re forced to,” Flissa said tightly.

  “Yeah, okay, sure, when they’re forced,” Galric said, though Sara knew after his own experiences he saw the Keepers very differently. “But that’s when they made the Twists, when Grosselor was ‘forced’ to make a really bad place to keep people he didn’t like, or who threatened his power, or—”

  Flissa frowned and shook her head as he spoke, and now she jumped in. “I don’t know who taught you Kaloonian history, but I know some books that—”

  Sara jumped in and tried to shift the subject. “We don’t need weapons because Flissa is a weapon. She’s been studying forever. She knows all kinds of combat: hand to hand, fencing, broadsword—”

  Flissa blushed under Sara’s praise, but Galric shook his head. “Uh-uh. I’ve seen her on the jousting field, and she’s amazing, but the Twists aren’t a game. No one’s gonna blow a trumpet and warn you they’re coming. They’ll act fast.”

  To make his point, he reached for Flissa’s wrist. She immediately grabbed and twisted his arm, using his own momentum to flip him onto the ground. He thumped down, and Flissa placed her foot on his chest. “You were saying?”

  “Weapons covered,” Galric croaked. “Can I get up now?”

  Flissa shrugged. “Maybe.”

  She let him lie there a moment, then removed her foot so he could stagger to his feet. He coughed a few times.

  “Okay,” he said when he’d caught his breath. “Let’s go see my friend and get you to the Twists.”

  Flissa’s upper lip had been beading sweat for the last half hour. She knew because she’d been following the chimes of the clock bells, which she could still hear even though the palace was long since out of view.

  She’d always known she dreaded making decisions. That’s why it was so wonderful to have Sara. Flissa could always rely on her—or her coin—to make the right choice, the one she was sure the universe wanted for her. Now it was Galric making the choices, and Flissa couldn’t help but feel like each one led them closer to their doom.

  That wasn’t entirely fair, she knew. Since they’d left the willow, Galric had been quite savvy. He never seemed to doubt his way, and he’d kept them hidden among the shadows and the trees. But now they all crouched together at the edge of a copse, staring down a steep hill at a wide, sparsely treed village that Galric said they had to pass through.

  “The good thing is most people are asleep,” he said.

  “What about their animals?” Flissa asked. Looking down, she could see the wood-slatted backyards with chicken coops and dogs. “What if they wake up and make noise?”

  “They won’t,” he said
.

  “You cannot possibly know that,” Flissa said. “What if they bark or crow and then the people wake up and see us?”

  “Or what if there’s Keepers in town?” Sara added.

  “Do you see any yellow robes? I don’t see any yellow robes,” Galric answered.

  “We wouldn’t see them,” Flissa reminded him. “Keepers hide.”

  Galric ran his hands through his hair. “This is the only way I know how to go.”

  “So what are our choices?” Flissa asked Sara, feeling the sweat prickle all over her body. “We follow Galric, which could mean discovery; or we don’t follow him, which means we can’t get to the Twists. Either choice could end our mission.”

  Sara looked at Flissa meaningfully. They both knew what the end of their mission meant. “Do I need to flip the coin?” Sara asked.

  Flissa pulled on the chain and held the locket in her hand. “What do you think?”

  Sara shook her head no, then turned to Galric. “Go ahead. Lead the way.”

  Their first job was getting down the hill to the village, and Galric had an idea for the best way to stay low and move fast. He took Nitpick from his shirt; then Flissa and Sara followed his lead as he lay flat on the ground, arms and legs outstretched to make himself as long and thin as possible, and rolled. Flissa made very little sound as she swooshed through the grass, but somehow Sara found every uneven patch, and each oof and oh and thump echoed like a cannon in Flissa’s ears.

  When they reached the bottom, they all lay perfectly still until they were sure no one was coming, then crawled to the edge of a water trough behind a cottage and crouched there, waiting to make their next move. Flissa turned to Sara, who was a mess. Grass stuck out of her braids, her cloak, her pants, everywhere. And she was grinning. Was she actually having fun? She opened her mouth to say something, but Flissa put a finger over her lips. It was far too dangerous to speak.

  The village was laid out haphazardly, with a large central gathering house, plus twenty cottages and their yards dotted between that and the woods that began on the other side. A dirt path bisected the village, and Galric did his best to keep them as far from it as possible. They darted from cottage to cottage, ducking behind wells, carriages, and chimneys. Each time, Flissa took Sara’s hand and picked out the clearest path, the one without any obstacles.